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If only there were a new program to make our churches missional — a model or process that could be bought on the PFR website and shipped to our church offices in nicely wrapped boxes in time for Christmas. I don’t mean to be Grinchy, but there isn’t. No amount of looking under the tree or attending conferences or reading books will do it. The commitment to being a missional congregation is for those who hear God’s call and are willing to follow that call in the fellowship of the “called-out ones.”

The word ecclesia, meaning “the called out ones,” was later replaced by kuriou during Constantine’s time. It comes from the genitive (possessive) case of “Lord,” referring to the “Lord’s place.” The word kuriou became kirk and then congregation, effectively moving us away from the Lord’s people to the Lord’s place. The sanctuary of a people, became the sanctuary of a place. But a missional people is less a group of people who gather in a sanctuary than a people who have answered God’s call and are now engaged in his mission.

Being a missional congregation is not for seekers. It is for those amazed to find that God is seeking them. A missional congregation does not simply send out a “mission team” or display a significant mission budget. Being a missional congregation at its heart means not being “congregation as usual.” Jacob gained the name Israel because he wrestled with God. And that’s exactly what missional congregations do.

Imagining a miracle

What follows are several possible elements of missional transformation any congregation could experience, along with some accompanying challenges. Change is never easy, and a missional reorientation is especially challenging for mainline Protestants. But missional transformation is biblical and energizing—being part of God’s plan for God’s people in God’s world.

We begin with two presuppositions: 1) “missional” is about a radical redirection of the focus of the congregation from inward to outward, and 2) those involved are actively becoming informed biblically and theologically.

So, let’s imagine a miracle.

Imagine a congregation that vibrates with expectancy. You expect God to work among you. You anticipate surprises and emerging changes. Accountability is transparent and honest, and there is respect among all. People actively listen for God in each person’s insights, desiring to see how all the accumulative pieces will develop into a sense of God’s direction in ministry. There is a deep and bold trust in God and an amazing trust of one another. That is the setting of a missional congregation. Unfortunately, fear and control, power and tradition, intimidation and insecurity all join forces to kill this kind of miracle. Elitism and pride can easily strike with deadly venom. God’s people at every level are all vulnerable.

However, when recognized and confronted, these miracle busters can be dealt with through the power and grace of Christ. This healthy, biblical, predictable confrontation is the starting point for a congregation desiring to be missional. Apart from this, conflict and crisis can be anticipated. Assume for now a healthy, ready congregation. What a missional congregation will look like is neither predictable nor programmable.

Similarities may be few. However, in every missional congregation, there will be a group of people gripped by God’s call who deeply desire to follow his leading. So what follows is a way a missional congregation might develop. But how it will look will be different in every situation.

Beginning with a core group

Missional transformation starts with a relatively small, discernment group willing to respond to God’s call to serious discipleship. They must not be displaced malcontents nor unwilling to face their own brokenness. Such a group may begin to form in a “casual” conversation, a response to God’s Word, a committee (shocking thought!), a session, a youth group – anywhere, as Jesus put it, “where two or three are gathered in my name.”

This group of people, as they listen for God’s voice, commits to be together to wrestle with God to seek his leading – as in the first century. Because the Church gathered is what Christ established as the way he would continue to work in the world, trust and vulnerability among Christ’s followers are prerequisite — a trust in God first and then a trust of one another.

Once gathered, these disciples eagerly and aggressively commit themselves to know Jesus the Christ through the study of Scripture. They take seriously the Reformed motto, “We are Reformed and always being reformed by the Word of God” (ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbi dei). They are empowered by the Word. Their theology is always being shaped by confrontations with scripture and often enlightened by the insights of God’s people through the ages.

Aware of their sinfulness, they also know their “holiness” and ability come only from God’s presence with them. Prayer becomes the atmosphere of their fellowship as: 1) They acknowledge that God has chosen, has called, and commissions them. 2) They confess their inability to accomplish God’s mission apart from his enabling power. 3) They focus on the passions and unique gifts God has placed in and among them. 4) They consider together how these callings, passions, and gifts might create a unique ministry for Christ.

As the reality of God’s mission begins to take shape, the gathered people prayerfully tell the story and watch for others God may be calling. They make sure those who respond also have the opportunity to wrestle with God – they are not recruiting others to accomplish someone else’s vision, create a new program, or get busier. Caution: If ministry becomes program or agenda it no longer is missional. A truly missional community is always relational because God is always relational. That is why God sent his Son to be the Savior, not a textbook or a philosophic construct.

As discernment of God’s leading and direction becomes clearer, a new challenge faces this calledout group – to scrape off the barnacles! These are the things in individual and corporate life that hinder the accomplishment of God’s mission – habits, sins, unnecessary commitments, even in the faith community, that need to be dropped. Today’s most costly barnacle is status quo.

Commissioning the mission

Now comes the time for this small group to be commissioned by the larger congregation. Guided by the leadership, this emerging ministry is examined in the light of 1) faithfulness to God’s calling within the congregation’s mission, and 2) the sufficiency of people called and gifted to accomplish the mission. If the congregational leaders agree that this is God’s vision and plan, they should “comission” (“send”) this group of disciples, even as the early congregation commissioned Paul and Barnabas and sent them without entitlement, relying only on God. Please do not demean the ministry by making it a “program of the congregation.” A program is envisioned, designed, and promoted by a few who expect and often pressure others to help them accomplish it; a ministry comes from the sense that God is leading these specific persons into this specific ministry. It is their calling.

Refreshment, restoration, participation in an accountability group, and further training and equipping all become life-giving sustenance for the “missionaries.” Sharing the stories of God’s activity in today’s world and the resultant worship, praising God for all that is happening enlivens the faithful, challenges those who do not yet understand and brings joy to God.

Some people will say, “This is not new! This is the same old thing we’ve done for years.” Yes and no. This process of discernment, growth, and commissioning may look and sound familiar because it is what God has been doing through the Holy Spirit in every age. But this is not the same old thing congregations have been doing. This level of biblical, theological, prayerful, and actual involvement in the plan and will of God will be new to the vast majority of people in our pews today. So few understand that they have been called by God into ministry, “going to church” but having no experiential understanding that they are the congregation called and sent into the world.

Missional congregations are revolutionary because they realize God has chosen them to know him so the rest of the world can see him, know him, and live as Christ would live. Missional people are going to be the too old and the too young and everyone in between. They will be men and women – the unlikely ones – living the most exciting roller coaster ride possible, one with present and eternal ramifications. For God’s sake, God’s people must stop “attending” church and start “being” the Church! This is the Church Christ promised to build through the ages. We are his ambassadors — his people!

Where then can you see and experience a missional congregation? Where people actively live as the hands and feet of Christ. When God wants to touch people, it will require the use of our hands. When God wants to be in relationship with someone, it will require us to introduce them to Christ. Where there is pain or fear or need, or when God wants something to be done about it, it will be done through our bodies, our minds, our hands, our emotions, our finances. Then we will be part of a missional congregation — a congregation turned inside out! Who knows where God will lead? God is still creating new things. It is incumbent on those seeking God’s leading not to try to fit into existing structure or modes of operating. “Look, I am doing a new thing” God says.

John Haberlin is a church growth consultant and a member of the PFR Board of Directors